Word: cayucos
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Deep in the Darien jungle of Panama last week, a long, pink cayuco (dugout canoe), propelled by an outboard motor, skimmed over the 150-ft.-deep waters of the newly formed lake. Spotting a floating tree trunk ahead, Tomas Perez, a Panamanian Indian, gave the motor full throttle, then lifted the propeller out of the water. The canoe slid easily over the log, hardly disturbing its other occupants, TIME correspondent Bernard Diederich and an odd assortment of caged animals. Following closely behind were two more cayucos manned by other Panamanians and a fiberglass boat carrying the project leader, U.S. Biologist...
Sighting a kinkajou (tropical honey-bear) in a treetop rising above the water, Walsh gave the order to move in. The cayuco bumped gently against the treetop, and an ax-wielding Indian hoisted himself onto a branch to chop through the trunk. As the treetop toppled, he caught the kinkajou by the tail before it hit the water. Soon the little bear was safely ensconced in a cage in mid-canoe. A black-vested anteater was rescued next, followed by an opossum, two sloths and even a 6-ft.-long tree boa. Explains Walsh: "I don't apologize...
After a six-hour stint in the stifling heat and insect-laden atmosphere of the jungle lake, the cayuco returned to one of the two Noah II base camps, a collection of palm-thatched, open-sided huts at the top of a hill that is still 200 ft. above the surface of the rising water. There the caged animals were placed in the shade and fed bananas. Then, late in the afternoon, Walsh and his helpers loaded the cages into boats and cruised up one of the more than 30 rivers that feed into the Bayano Dam reservoir. Far upstream...
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